The Hero’s Mirror
by A. M. Harding
Copyright 2011 by A. M. Harding
License Notes
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For as long as I can remember, father hated mirrors. As I lift my head, my long tresses brushing against my hero’s chest and shoulder stir him. He murmurs softly, his own golden locks soft against the pillow; they curl like I imagine an angel’s would. I slip gently from his protective embrace, and thankfully he does not wake. I pull my shift over my head, a gift from my hero, this peasant dress, and step out onto the balcony. So many times I’ve told him that this luxury room, on the tavern’s top floor, was too conspicuous.
Every time, he just laughs with that rich, deep voice of his and tells me that I worry too much. Then he kisses me, pulling me close, wrapping me in his warm embrace, and I trust him. I will always trust him, I love him.
Tonight the wind blows cold and harsh, shredding the heavy clouds overhead and stripping them away. It is almost prophecy, the dark storm had been pressing down on the village for more than a week, keeping the sunshine away and shedding its cold water in depressing torrents. I watch the clouds fleeing before the winds of change. We know a secret, the wind and I, for tomorrow will be different.
A shaft of moonlight breaks through the clouds, throwing the town into sudden black and white relief and I draw back against the curtains, suddenly fearful and exposed. Turning, I press through the curtains and go back inside. My hero has rolled over in his sleep, a thin ray of moonlight from the window glows across his sculpted body.
Lust stirs in my belly like the fire of a draught of whiskey, but lower, much lower. Though I reach for him, I stay my hand before I can wake my hero, I must be back within the fortress long before dawn. It grows early, and I cannot delay. I wrap my cloak around me and cast a final look to my beloved. Against the wall his armour awaits the coming dawn, a sheathed sword and shield beside them. The highly-polished shield seems to glow even through the protective leather cover as if lit from within.
Finally, I slip from the room and nod to the four guards that await me on the other side. They wear dark, unadorned cloaks and black-dyed tabards over their uniforms. Two of the guards escort me down to the tavern’s cellar; it is musty from some long-forgotten tuber sprouting eyes in an unlit corner. They turn their backs, watching the staircase intently as I slip into the narrow space between two massive barrels of wine and locate the switch that will open the secret passageway.
There is a click, and a section of the wall slides open with a low scraping sound, revealing a dark and narrow corridor. We hurry along the passage, one guard in front and one behind, the thump of their boots echoing between the narrow stones. With the secret door closed behind us, it is dark, and I run my fingers along the wall to keep myself steady.
A distant lantern stands vigil at the other end of the passage over a set of steep stairs and a few coat hooks set into the stone wall. The guards quickly strip away their tabards and cloaks, hanging them on the hooks, and stand at the foot of the stairs now indistinguishable from the rest of father’s soldiers. They turn their heads discretely as I hang up my cloak and peasant dress before pulling on a simple night-gown.
We nod to each other silently, apprehension clear as the tolling of a new bell in all of our eyes. I smother the lantern, and the darkness consumes us. It used to be hard to navigate these stairs in the complete darkness, but my feet have long since learnt the way. There is only a brief pause at the top of the narrow stairs before we burst into a hallway, the muted torches in their sconces are almost as bright as day after the self-imposed gloom. The guards fall in at either side of me, swiftly escorting me back to my room like a wayward child. Only after I have closed the heavy wooden door behind me do I realise how my heart is pounding.
I climb between the rumpled satin sheets and pull the covers to my chin, but my eyes will not close. I want to steal a few moments of sleep, to rest my mind that aches from racing all day long, but instead I am inflamed with memories. They tease and shimmer in the eye of my mind. I think of how, as is the wont of these things, it started with the most innocent of words.
***
“I know how to do it,” my hero had said to me. I had looked up at him with innocent eyes and asked: do what? He had laughed, the way I loved to hear him laugh, and kissed my forehead. “I know how to enter the castle, to face your father.” I must have looked frightened, because he blessed me with such a look of infinite patience and love that my heart melted all over again. He lifted my chin with a gentle hand and looked earnestly into my eyes with those sparkling blue eyes of his, “worry not Princess, now that I know his secret, I will be victorious.”
I do not own a mirror. In fact, there is nothing in the entire castle with a surface more reflective that the satin sheets on my bed. Even the cutlery is engraved with expensive and detailed filigree so nothing can be seen in the distorted surface. My father’s paranoia even extended past than the walls of his own castle, and the peasantry were forbidden from owning mirrors. The most precious possession a peasant can own in this village is a pendant, a highly polished disc of silver, a sign of rebellion.
My earliest memory, when my mother was still alive, I was a mere infant and my father was receiving a dignitary from a land far beyond our own borders. A king from somewhere far away had brought my father gift. His aides struggled to bring it into the receiving chamber, something massive, draped about with a sheet. With a flourish, the foreign king had brought down the sheet to reveal a massive mirror, encased in a frame of gold and chased all around with gems of every description. There was a deathly silence as all eyes turned to my father.
My father’s gaze met that of his reflection, and a spasm shuddered through his entire being. His eyes began to turn back in his head and he seemed paralysed. As he began to slump from his throne, my mother broke the silence with a panicked shriek. Another paroxysm jolted through him, as if he were about to go into a fit, when father’s most trusted advisor, a shadowy man who seemed to lurk even in the middle of the day, threw his massively heavy cane through the mirror, shattering it. Mother fainted, and the dignitary was hurried out of the room as the trusted advisor tried to bring my father around.
After my mother passed away, for she was weak of constitution, I was placed in the care of an ever growing parade of nannies. My next memory was of the nanny who prided her looks so greatly, that upon discovering there were no mirrors in the house, she appealed to my father to purchase her one. She was a plump and buxom creature with small piggy eyes and masses of long silken ringlets.
My father steadfastly refused, and they bickered back and forth, each refusing to back down, father breaking out in a cold sweat at the mere mention of “mirror”. Finally, she took things into her own hands and brought a small mirror to the castle from a neighbouring town, no larger than the size of father’s palm. The innocent child that I was, found this shiny new object fascinating, and having stolen it from her dresser one day, I immediately ran to father to show him my new prize.
He was furious, throwing the tiny mirror to the ground and grinding it under his heel. He asked me no questions, he already knew how this travesty had come to his house, and the nanny was fired. Hidden in the bottom of one of my drawers the twisted silver that once housed the shining glass still resides, a slender sliver of glass, like a fragment of a lake reflecting the sky, clinging to the frame.
My innocence didn’t last long. It was hard to stay innocent amongst the screams of tortured prisoners, the march of highly trained guards, the rebellious uprisings from the villagers. A nigh-endless line of self-proclaimed heroes pounded at our doors. They all died.
br /> My father was no king, but he ruled with a grip of iron, and an unbreakable army of loyal soldiers. At the centre of the castle, he sat in a throne of black stone, windows all about to fill the room with light. His most trusted advisor always lurking somewhere behind that throne in the shadows like a leech.
***
Dawn comes too quickly, and yet it is a relief when those first rays fight the heavy velvet curtains and softly light up the room. I am released from my endless night of waiting, and I spring from my bed. From my closet I choose my favourite dress, a velvet and silk affair of deep scarlet with a full skirt. I ring the bell impatiently a few times before slipping into a petticoat and pulling up the skirt, slipping my arms through the elegant bell sleeves.
A maid steps through the side door, and sees me half-dressed, snapping to attention and taking up the laces at the back. Lace by lace, she tightens the silk ribbon tight around my bodice until I can barely breathe, before tying off the ribbons in a tight bow at the small of my back, letting the long ribbons trail. I drop onto the bed, and the maid obediently fetches my boots, placing them on my feet and buttoning them up. The last button was barely done when I was on my feet and out the door.
I dragged a brush through my flaxen hair, as pale as innocence, as I trotted towards the dining room. Breakfast had been laid out, but the room was empty, father had already been and gone. I pace the dining hall frantically, the smell of the cooling breakfast sour in my nostrils, before bursting out into the hall to stalk the corridors, trying to quell the impatience and restlessness in my bones. Unexpectedly, blinded by thoughts turned inwards, I almost crash into a pageboy bearing a massive bouquet of roses the same colour as my dress.
“Madam,” the pageboy splutters, “I’m glad I found you.” I fidget impatiently, ignoring the stuttering boy, until suddenly the words sink in.
“Wait, what was that?”
“I- I- I- was saying,” he struggles to repeat, “that the delivery man was most insistent that I take these to you immediately.” My eyes open wide, my hero is in the castle, this is the sign I have been waiting for. I reach into the bouquet and grasp a rose, a thorn piercing my palm as I pull the flower from the pageboy’s hands, causing the others to spill to the floor. Their petals are like blood on the stones.
I do not even look at the confused pageboy, kneeling to gather the fallen roses. I break into a run, boots ringing through the stone halls; somehow I do not get any blood in my hair as I twine the rose into my tresses.
I burst into my father’s chamber, no one moves from the frozen tableau before my eyes. Caught in a scene of unmasking, my hero stands at the foot of my father’s throne, his leather-covered shield at the ready and his sword being drawn with infinite slowness. My father is rising, his own sword slipping from its sheath, advisors and soldiers look on in horror. Even though I see everything in cruel slow-motion, it is happening too fast for any of us to move.
My father raises his sword, I cry out an involuntary denial, holding my wounded hand out to my hero. A drop of blood wells upon my palm, falling from my flesh and glinting in the air like a perfect ruby. My hero places a hand on his shield, a triumphant grin crosses his face as he pulls back the leather cover to reveal the surface of his shield. There is a blinding flash as the shining surface catches the sun. There are so many windows in this room, it is like the burn of a holy light.
The shield is a work of art. The carefully shaped surface perfectly smooth and without a single flaw, foiled with mirror silver. An artisan glass blower had carefully shaped a curved sheet of glass, fitted to the shield and polished to a sheen. The result was a perfect mirror.
My father freezes in place upon encountering his reflection. The blood from my hand strikes the flagstone, no one dares to breathe. He raises his free hand to his cheek, rubs his chin gently.
“I think I could do with a shave.”
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About the Author
A. M. Harding is an aspiring author from Brisbane, Australia. She loves games, movies, and books; and writes short stories in between working on her first novel.
https://www.twitter.com/Angell_writing